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Adam Zagoria covers basketball at all levels. He is the author of two books and an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, Sheridan Hoops, Sports Illustrated, Basketball Times and in newspapers nationwide.
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Monday / December 9.
  • JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Rick Pitino says if UConn leaves the Big East for the ACC, it will be the “dumbest thing” he’s ever heard.

    “I almost went to Connecticut, it was Connecticut or UMass,” the Louisville coach told SNY.tv during an exclusive interview Tuesday at Hudson Catholic High School. “I remember when they were struggling to win the Yankee Conference. In all of sports, the greatest building job I’ve seen in my life was done at Connecticut. The Big East has taken them from a Yankee Conference school” to where they are now.

    “With that being said, how can you want to leave? Why would you want to leave? My biggest mistake I made in my life is when I left Camelot [Kentucky]” to lead the Boston Celtics in 1997. “They’re leaving Camelot. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of.”

    JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Whatever else happens with conference realignment going forward, Rick Pitino wants Temple back in the Big East.

    “To me, Temple’s perfect,” the Louisville coach told SNY.tv during an exclusive interview Tuesday at Hudson Catholic High School, which he was visiting on a recruiting trip. “They were already in the Big East. They are an excellent football program right now. They should’ve beaten Penn State. They blew out Maryland, who beats Miami. They’re 3-1

    “And they’re a terrific school scholastically. They fit what we should’ve been doing from the beginning. They should’ve been our No. 1 priority four years ago, Temple, to get them back in. We made a mistake letting them go; they should’ve been our No. 1 priority.”

    JERSEY CITY, N.J. — The most recent basketball banner in the gym at Hudson Catholic Regional High School dates back to the 1975-76 season and the Jim Spanarkel/Mike O’Koren Era.

    When 6-foot-7 junior wing Reggie Cameron looks up at that banner nowadays, he longs to add a more updated version.

    “Yes, definitely,” he said. “That’s what we plan on doing.”

    With the emergence of the talented junior trio of Cameron, point guard Kavon Stewart and power forward Mike Young, the Hawks are poised to challenge St. Anthony and St. Patrick among the Garden State’s elite.

    Despite everything that’s happened to him in the last few days, Kevin Parrom is still flashing a sense of humor.

    He tweeted at Isaiah Thomas, “Idk what hurts more your shot that went in at the end of the game or the 1 i got this weekend smh lol”

    Thomas drained a buzzer beater last spring to lead Washington over Arizona in the Pac-10 championship game.

    In a development first reported Sunday night by SNY.tv, Parrom was shot over the weekend in the right leg in his mother’s home in The Bronx in an apparent dispute over a woman.

    John Calipari may be loaded for the present, but he’s still looking ahead to the future.

    The Kentucky coach spent part of Monday visiting Kuran Iverson, a 6-foot-9, 210-pound 2013 small forward out of West Hartford (Conn.) Northwest Catholic.

    “He just said, ‘What’s up?’ and asked me how’s it going,” Iverson, the cousin of former Georgetown and NBA star Allen Iverson, told SNY.tv.

    The Atlantic 10 Conference will shift its postseason basketball tournament to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn beginning in 2013, multiple league sources confirmed to SNY.tv.

    A press conference is set for 12:30 p.m. Wednesday featuring A10 Commissioner Bernadette McGlade; Rhode Island coach and Brooklyn native Jim Baron; Fordham coach Tom Pecora; and Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark.

    “I think that venue would be great for the league, and could be a platform for several talented players to shine in the best city in the world,” one A-10 assistant coach told SNY.tv.

    Meantime, the Nets announced Monday that they will become the Brooklyn Nets when they move to the facility from New Jersey for the 2012-13 season.

    “From the moment the Barclays Center became a reality, I knew this meant something significant for Brooklyn,” Nets co-owner JAY-Z said. “This is where I’m from, I’ll always be Brooklyn, and opening this arena will mean more to me than anywhere else. I also look forward to opening night for the Brooklyn Nets. We’re going to create an atmosphere like only Brooklyn can.”

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